What would I do with this blog if I didn't like to eat as much as I do? That question might be silly because 1) I do love to eat and I hope that never goes away, and 2) this blog wouldn't exist in the first place if I didn't enjoy eating. Just a thought. I don't know. Moving on! Here's a big - but fun, and worth the read! - compilation of most of the blog-worthy, inspiring things I've tasted in the last month-ish. Bon appetit!
A turkey burger on a whole-wheat bun from Sylvester's Burgers in Los Osos is probably one of the foods I'll almost crave. It's huge and the zucchini fries are an absolute must, so I like to let myself get hungrier than usual so I can enjoy it all because who takes a couple bites of a burger home? Maybe you, but not me. Oh, and all of it tastes much better when eaten in good company!
A random snack plate from a day during finals week last quarter when I knew I needed food but didn't know what I wanted. Some fresh veggies and hummus, Rumiano white cheddar cheese (spendy, but tasty), and a handful of Hippeas sounded pretty good. Easy and satisfying!
Homemade whole-wheat pizzas (Trader Joe's dough) with Mom and Dad when I was at home for spring break, and when they still lived in SoCal (they've moved back to Minnesota now, if you missed that post). If burgers are the first food I'll almost always crave, pizza is a close second. Good news is both of those foods allow for plenty of veggies, proteins, carbs, and fats! Wow, what a balanced life.
Dinner and my go-to beverage with Jeannette when I drove up to NorCal to visit her for a weekend. We made turkey meatballs, zucchini meatballs with an avocado pesto sauce, and whole-grain toast with hummus and Healthade to drink. Of course, we wanted to save room for dessert - then ate it too quickly to take pictures of it - which was my cherry garcia cookie skillet. Yummaaaa. Love and miss you, Jeannette!
To-go lunch packed for one of my long days on campus. I've been all about pasta salad lately (I can't remember the last time I had anything on hand that wasn't Banza pasta - by far my favorite!), so I make a huge batch each week and scoop some out when I'm packing lunch for the day. This one is my pesto pasta salad recipe, but I've also used hummus, Tessemae's dressing, and Primal Kitchen dressing, too. Plenty of options!
Mmmm, my favorite weekday breakfast as of late - a big green smoothie made of frozen banana, frozen zucchini, spinach, avocado, Ka'Chava Tribe Chocolate protein, some cacao powder for extra chocolateyness, and a juicy date for extra sweetness, aaaaaand all of it topped with some of the best packaged granola I've had, Gr8nola (thanks Erica!). Smoothies are usually the easiest, tastiest, and fastest way for my muscles to get the nutrients they need in the morning after I workout and before I leave for class.
Pizza! Again! This one is from Blast 825 Taproom - they offer $5 pizzas for students on Tuesday nights. It's a tough decision between $5 pizza and taco Tuesday, but pizza wins more often than not when I don't feel like cooking/want something I rarely or never make at home for myself. My favorite is barbecue sauce + grilled chicken + veggies + light mozzarella + goat cheese and red pepper flakes and basil on top. Damn good, my friends.
An unplanned dinner out with a couple friends at a local Mediterranean restaurant (Petra, for those of you in SLO). Everyone has been telling me to try this place, and since I love Mediterranean food, I was certainly excited! Did it "wow" me? No. But was it still enjoyable? Yes, mostly because I, again, had good company :) I ordered the grilled chicken shawarma with pita (I think it's made in house and it's deeeeelicious) and we all dipped everything we could in as many dips as possible before looking weird.
OKAY. This was incredibly simple and even more incredibly tasty. I combined the last of my tempeh skillet leftovers with some roasted Japanese sweet potatoes and some mixed greens on the side, all of it topped with feta, and promised myself I'd make this more often. MMMM. Love me some plants. And sweet potatoes (which are plants, I realize that, but they deserve their own sentence fragment).
An assortment of snacks and wine for a friend's birthday picnic! You can't see the sunset in this picture, and this post isn't about the sunset, but - my, oh myyyyy was it beautiful. Anyway, we LOVE cheese and crackers and other snacks one would think of with wine, so we went all out tonight. No holding back, especially on a birthday! Brie, Gouda, cheddar, hummus and sliced carrots and cucumbers, grapes and berries, crackers and crackers and more crackers, plus bacon-wrapped dates (did you hear that? bacon. wrapped. dates.). Oh, and sangria and a couple other whites and reds. Lots of laughter, too. Like, even more laughter than cheese (that's a lot).
Cookbook cookies! If you're unaware, I'm teaming up with a friend/fellow Cal Poly student to write a cookbook (technically an ebook, but potAYto, potAHto, ya' know?). Every week, she and I meet up for an all-day cooking, baking, and photographing session. It's an absolute blast. I couldn't imagine trying to do this on my own - not only would it be physically challenging, but emotionally/mentally challenging as well. Having a partner in this project is a blessing! Oh, and these are salted chocolate chunk tahini cookies - the recipe will be in the book, so get excited!
Another version of my favorite smoothie, but this time sans granola (because sometimes it fills me up beyond comfortable-full) and in a measuring cup (because it was laying around from when I made coffee earlier and wasn't technically "dirty", soooo... yeah). I added double the cacao powder compared to the recipe earlier in this post and have been doing so ever since. Extra chocolate flavor is as much of a "must" as brushing your teeth everyday. Not an exaggeration.
Oh. My. Word. This was what dreams are made of. Grace and I treated ourselves to a fancy Sunday brunch at Lido, which is a restaurant inside one of the resorts in Shell Beach. A friend of mine works there and always talks about how good the food is - and he mentioned mimosas, so Grace was in immediately, with or without the good food. She and I split a scrambled egg dish and asked for sweet potato fries on the side instead of the home fries, and a half-order of the french toast. And it was sunny and 75. And the service was fantastic and so were the mimosas. And the view was perfect. We'll be back. :)
My snack bag for long days on campus consists of a lunch, which is almost always some sort of salad, and plenty of snacks - fruit, a granola/protein bar, veggies, maybe some popcorn or chips, and one of these PaleoValley turkey or beef sticks. I can't decide whether I like turkey or beef more, but I do know I'm definitely a fan of both. Plus, they're pasture-raised and grass-fed!
Last but never the least, here's another snack-bag favorite. When I don't have time during the week to make these protein bites, RX Bars have my back. Some of the flavors are a bit too chewy for me, but the I've found this flavor and the dark chocolate to be just about perfect. And I like that egg whites are the protein source - it gives my diet that much more variety, since I already include protein powder in my smoothies a few times a week. RX Bars, y'all rock my snack-loving socks off. Keep it up.
So, there you have it - another round-up of eats. I hope you like reading these because I like eating all the food and writing about it!